These lines of Mueller’s poem jumped out at me:

I was too young to notice
how fear persists, and how
the anger that causes fear persists,
that its trajectory can’t be changed
or broken, only interrupted.

Does anger cause fear?
Is fear immutable?
Is anger?
Are trajectories at best interrupted?

What if fear is the root cause of anger?
What if dragons can be slain?
What if anger can be dissipated?
What if fear and anger have
Reserve tanks of will?

Fear can forever follow fiendishly
Or may one stop running from shadows?
What if anger is a noxious byproduct
That might fuel more noble endeavors?

Flies will do what is in the nature of flies to do
When seeking paths to follow,
Whose will you choose?

Reena Saxena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge.  Reena presents us with a poem by Lisel Mueller:

IMMORTALITY
In Sleeping Beauty’s castle
the clock strikes one hundred years
and the girl in the tower returns to the world.
So do the servants in the kitchen,
who don’t even rub their eyes.
The cook’s right hand, lifted
an exact century ago,
completes its downward arc
to the kitchen boy’s left ear;
the boy’s tensed vocal cords
finally let go
the trapped, enduring whimper,
and the fly, arrested mid-plunge
above the strawberry pie,
fulfills its abiding mission
and dives into the sweet, red glaze.

As a child I had a book
with a picture of that scene.
I was too young to notice
how fear persists, and how
the anger that causes fear persists,
that its trajectory can’t be changed
or broken, only interrupted.
My attention was on the fly;
that this slight body
with its transparent wings
and lifespan of one human day
still craved its particular share
of sweetness, a century later.

PROMPT
Does this poem inspire a chain of thoughts? … Let your imagination run amok. May the scenarios you paint inspire a composite piece of art or literature!  As usual, there is no restriction on length or format of the piece. Write a post on your blog, and copy-paste the link here.